AUTHOR’S NOTE: As part of his apparent crusade to reduce the Golden Dawn’s multiplex card titles to single words, Aleister Crowley truncated the name of the 2 of Swords from “Lord of Peace Restored” to simply “Peace,” thereby redirecting the thrust of the Order’s definition, which was intended to convey successful recovery from distress. “Strength through suffering” and “pleasure after pain” are two examples of this redemption, also “arrangement of differences” (by which I think they meant accommodation) and “truce” (a mutual but temporary cessation of conflict allowing for negotiation toward a more permanent accord). The idea behind Crowley’s “Peace” does not contemplate nor correct previous upset, it just is in an absolute and unheralded sense.

Crowley did not acknowledge the concept of “restoration” and just said that “the energy resides above the onslaught of disruption” as if it had never known anything else. He noted that the Moon in Libra emphasizes “comparative calm” and that all of the variables contributing to the card’s meaning neutralize the “antagonism native to the suit.” He described the character of Swords in general as “complicated and disordered” in its changeability, and the fluctuating Moon exaggerates this in the Two, but “Nature is peaceful” and “Libra represents balance; between them they regulate the energy of the Swords.”

I find much to like in Lon Milo DuQuette’s definition of “Dormant antagonism” for this card (otherwise he mainly parroted Crowley and the Golden Dawn with some minor word-smithing). Peace may have been reinstated but its grip is tenuous and, like a smoldering volcano, its dark side could awaken with a vengeance at any time. DuQuette has me thinking “hostility is on hold but the pot is still simmering.” I don’t fully accept Crowley’s premise that the Two “manifests the very best idea possible to the suit” (although with the prickly Swords that isn’t saying much). The binary numbers may be inherently passive, but this iteration is sporting a touchy attitude, daring the incautious or imprudent to “make its day.”

For me, the Moon is unpredictable and in constant flux; the number Two represents a pendulum swinging between opposite extremes but only briefly finding center; and Libra is the sign of exaltation for Saturn, which here renders its harsh judgment with “an iron fist in a velvet glove” while in the background Libra’s ruler, Venus, wrings her hands over Saturn’s lack of sympathy. If justice stays its hand, it is due to expedience rather than mercy. This looks like a recipe for discord, not harmony, and this card has always suggested doubt and vacillation to me. It seems quietly anxious, and there is not an ounce of comfort in it.